Origin of the Vow of Ahimsa

Origin of the Vow of Ahimsa

Origin of the Vow of Ahimsa

Cultivate harmony in your thoughts, speech and action.

Your Vow of Ahimsa has a profound impact on the cosmic psyche of peace.

“We must stop the bleeding. We must stop the hurting. We must stop the killing. We must become the light we strive for.”

–Maya Tiwari

Maya Tiwari’s extraordinary work on Living Ahimsa-The Power of Peace throughout the world has been touching and healing thousands of lives. Since Maya Tiwari’s inauguration of this pioneering work following the disaster of September 11, 2001 she has personally guided more than 145,000 participants into the Vow of Ahimsa – the individual commitment to inner-harmony, health and world peace. Maya Tiwari served as one of the religious leaders in the Forum of Concerned Religious Leaders prayer service in New York City, offering prayers for grieving families and the suffering of people everywhere. She initiated the Vow of Ahimsa on the scarred grounds of the World Trade Center, New York City.

In Maya Tiwari’s words, “I am on this journey to do what it is I naturally do in the path of my purpose: to guide and participate in the process of human wholeness in order that we may cull the elements within to safeguard the mind of peace. Living Ahimsa is humanity’s work – a primal call to take back the world! That is, the world within. Each day that we breathe and pause and look up in awe at the wonderment that is manifestation is a day spent in harmony. As we move about and use up the pranic force that empowers each of our distinct number of days on earth, let us we flow with all that is about to unfold in our lifetime. Indeed, the future of our earth is riven with nature’s massive movements and reorientations, with a prescient decree of death, tragedies, and destruction. Living Ahimsa guides the way to gather our internal elements and remain poised in sentiency and consciousness. This we must do, if we are to scale the terrain of yet another cycle of life in which we live.”

The Vow of Ahimsa means many things to many people. For the Vedic Seers, and Hinduism, ahimsa is an everyday way of life. The vast Vedic tomes on meditation, yoga, holistic medicine, physics, astronomy, architecture, and so on, are all rooted in the universal law of ahimsa. For Mahatma Gandhi, it was to implement civil disobedience (satyagraha – holding firm to the truth) in defiance of British imperial law in India. His path of ahimsa assumed courageous, yet simple forms (such as a nation harvesting salt from the sea). He demonstrated that the spirit of ahimsa can ultimately win all battles.

In Maya Tiwari’s work with Living Ahimsa, we bring ahimsa to the inner terrain of the human mind, emotion, and purpose. Ultimately, it is the human person who has the power to change darkness into light, ignorance and intolerance into wisdom and understanding. As the order of nature continues to fall out of balance, the imperative directive is to look within- to find our equilibrium. If we can remain poised within, we can create inner harmony. Simply by utilizing each and every ray of light that streams into our awareness, we can pierce through to the bottom of darkness and expose hope and love. After all, these are transformers that conduct light into lightness and intelligence into knowing.

In 2009, the Living Ahimsa Tour in USA and Australia attracted approximately 50,000 advocates to the Vow of Ahimsa – More Info

For 15 years, Maya Tiwari has been teaching this powerful work of Living Ahimsa to groups of holistic practitioners at Wise Earth School, Asheville, North Carolina.

Each month at the Wise Earth School instructors create an Ahimsa Peace Mandala from nature’s organic grains and legumes. Each offering is taken with The Vow thereby re-initiating the commitment to ahimsa every month.

At the Women’s Power to Heal Tour which occurred in July – September 2008 in the USA & Canada; Maya Tiwari guided approximately 6,500 women into the Vow of Ahimsa – More Info

At the Sacred Reality Programs in Rishikesh, India, February -March 2008, Maya Tiwari continued the Living Ahimsa journey by guiding 500 participants at the Ayurveda Conference, Rishikesh, India into taking the Vow of Ahimsa – More Info.

Australia in November 2007: On her Peace Be Your Journey Tour, Mother guided 5,500 participants into the Vow of Ahimsa in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Adelaide, and Emu Park – More Info.

Each year (2003 – 2007) during the annual event of the Honoring Ancestors’ Conference: at the Kripalu Yoga Center in Lenox, MA, participants each take The Vow of Ahimsa. More than 1000 participants have taken the Vow of Ahimsa at these events – More Info

“Living Ahimsa” is a trademark of the Living Ahimsa Foundation and all materials are copyright by the Living Ahimsa Foundation. References to Living Ahimsa® program may be made in other publications and other websites provided the context clearly refers to the Swami Mayatitananda as the founder of the program with this attribution containing a link back to thewww.mypeacevow.com web site.

Wise Earth School of Ayurveda

Wise Earth School of Ayurveda is the first school for Ayurveda teachings in the USA founded by Maya Tiwari. Established in 1981, Wise Earth Ayurveda® unique curricula in Inner Medicine Healing has restored Ayurveda’s long lost knowledge of nature's interrelated nourishers -- Food, Breath and Sound (annavidya, pranavidya, and mantravidya). More Info...